Help on Copy Filter / File Filter

Help & Support
1

Hi everybody,

most likely I am a bit to blonde to find the right configuration but surely someone can help me.

I have a folder with several 100k files. What I am trying to do with the copy filter:

Move all folders with a specific name pattern (+their content) to a different place. The problem is that the folders are deeper inside of the folder hierarchy.

Sample: (filter is looking for sound*)
Data\folder1\onemoresubfolder\sound1\allthefiles...
Data\folder1\onemoresubfolder\sound2\allthefiles...
Data\folder1\onemoresubfolder\graphic1\allthefiles...
Data\folder1\onemoresubfolder\graphic2\allthefiles...
Data\folder2\onemoresubfolder\sound5\allthefiles...
Data\folder2\onemoresubfolder\sound7\allthefiles...
Data\folder2\onemoresubfolder\graphic4\allthefiles...
Data\folder2\onemoresubfolder\graphic5\allthefiles...
...

Can anyone please tell me how to configure the filter?

cheers
Bodo

2

Do you want the sound* folders to end up directly in the destination?

If so then I think doing a Find (Advanced) to find name matching sound* and type Folders Only would be easier.

After doing the find you can simply select and copy everything from the find results.

3

Hi leo,

thanks for the answer but I want to preserve the file structure in the destination folder.

4

Something like Location Match sound should work.

5

thanks for the hint, jon. I have to admit I didn't understand before your hint how this option of this function worked at all (in the German translation).

Nevertheless the copy filter is working strangely in 2 aspects:

  1. it seems it is first copying or at least target folders on the destination partition BEFORE checking the filter. This leads to heavy disk activity and of course wastes a lot of resources

  2. when using the copy filter there was an error message that a folder could not be copied as it wasn't empty. As those folders were not to be copied I ignored the message consequently.

Later on I found out that several hundreds of empty folders have disappeared! IMHO all files not being filtered successfully should remain unharmed. I hope this doesn't have impact on my critical work data :open_mouth:

cheers
Bodo

6

With a filtered copy, all of the empty folders are created anyway, but then they get deleted at the end if nothing got copied into them.

7

Another way you could do this is to turn on (new in 9.1.1.8) Added new option to Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced: flatview_folder_filters and then enter Flat-View mode (via the View menu), and filter the folders so you only see sound*.

Then just select them and click Copy. Opus will ask if you want to recreate or flatten the directory structure in the destination.

That avoids all the temporary empty folders.

8

@leo

yes, the empty folders are copied and deleted in the destination folder. But when moving the folders are deleted in the source folder TOO so they are gone at all.

This sounds very much like a bug.

I will keep the second hint in mind when doing this again. Right now I have gone through the original process (losing more than 1000 empty folders).

9

That's definitely a bug. I've reported it.

10

Hi,

Today I was fiddling with some copy filters and I noticed the same behaviour. If a use a copy filter and the source directory contains empty subfolders , then the destination doesn't contain these empty folders.

I don't think this is correct. The empty folders should be copied too, as is when doing a normal copy (that is without a copy filter).

11

If the folders themselves match the filter then I agree, but otherwise the empty folders should not be copied, IMO.

12

Hi,

If the folders themselves match the filter then I agree, but otherwise the empty folders should not be copied, IMO.[/quote]

I don't understand why those empty dirs shouldn't be copied.
Let me try to give an example:

SRC: rootdir dirA dirB dirEmpty dirC dirD

I use a copy filter to exclude directories with the name "dirC" , then I expect:

DEST: rootdir dirA dirB dirEmpty dirD

What Dopus gives me now is:

DEST: rootdir dirA dirB dirD

Which is strange because if I do a copy without any filter the empty dir is still included.

Can you explain why the "dirEmpty" shouldn't be copied when using a filter ?

Greetings,
Chuvke

13

If the folders themselves match the filter then I agree.

In your example dirEmpty matches the filter, so I agree it should be copied. If it didn't match the filter, though, then it shouldn't be copied.

(I wasn't saying it actually was copied at the moment. As Bodo's post pointed out, there are some problems with empty folders and filters at the moment.)